Book Beat: May 1998

Double Burden: Black Women and Everyday Racism

Drawing on more than 200 interviews,
this book examines the complex family, social, and workplace lives of African
American women in several regions of the United States. This is the
first book to deal in-depth with the lives and experiences of these women,
told in their own words, as they see and experience them. Revealed here are not
only stories of encounters with obstacles, racist attitudes, and prejudicial
actions and opinions, but also methods that many have adopted for overcoming
barriers, through the development of an array of survival and countering strategies,
which the authors refer to collectively as an oppositional culture, rooted
in the family structure and sustained and transmitted via collective memory
through the centuries. Some will find the book depressing,
others will find it uplifting, but all will welcome the candor and passion
with which these women (and some men) describe their lives.

- Publisher

Excerpt

As we have underscored throughout
this book, in our racist system African American women and men are frequently
not recognized for who they really are. Their talents, accomplishments,
and burdens are often invisible to many whites. It would be disconcerting
enough if the white failure to recognize the full humanity and life experiences
of black women - and of the black family - were confined within the borders
of the United States. However, the U.S. mass media's globalization
of the deformed portrayals of African Americans is a major source of concern
for a high school principal in a southern city: "It's absolutely amazing
about how Hollywood and New York have actually killed the black family
and the black image to the whole world, since Britain gets our TV and things
like that - and Australia." Many videotapes of movies and television programs
portraying black Americans in a negative light are shown around the world
every day of the week. In this way people across the globe who have never
met an African American pick up the hoary racist stereotypes crafted in
America.

A Rush of Dreamers: Being the remarkable
story of Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico

In San Francisco, a city famous for its eccentrics, the
most celebrated of all was Joshua Norton who, in 1859, declared himself
Emperor of the United States. One of the original '49ers, Norton
made and lost a fortune (and a good portion of his reason) during those
rough and ready first years of the "instant" city that grew out of the
sand dunes of Yerba Buena. Until his death in 1880, the Emperor presided
over the public life of San Francisco. Dressed in his fabled uniform
with its plumed hat, Norton made his daily rounds of the city; he attended
its civic functions, inspected its progress, issues proclamations, including
one that called for the construction of a bridge between Oakland and San
Francisco. Norton I became one of San Francisco's most publicized
attractions; and he remains a presence that still lingers in the Bay, where
hotel suites and inns, a sightseeing boat, and even a brand of coffee and
cigars have been named in his honor.

- Publisher

Excerpt

Like I said, I remember him when he was fresh off
the boat, when he set his first foot down on these shores.....He wasn't
the Emperor then to be sure, just Joshua Norton, from Algoa Bay at the
tip of Africa, thirty-one years old, an Englishman, a Jew, and a man itching
to get ahead, like all others, Hebrew, gentile, or oriental, who had braved
the sea or land to reach this place. He had brought forty thousand
dollars with him to start himself off, I later learned, all that was left
to him by his father, poor man, who had died in England trying to find
a rabbi to bring God's ancient word back to Africa. Not long after
that Norton lost his mother as well, and his two brothers, Louis and Philip,
in the few years before he came. There was nothing to keep him there.
No sweetheart, no friends. Only sad memories which he'd rather leave.

Statistical Tests for Mixed Linear Models

In recent years a breakthrough has occurred in our ability
to draw inferences from exact and optimum tests of variance component models,
generating much research activity that relies on linear models with mixed
and random effects. This volume covers the most important research
of the past decade as well as the latest developments in hypothesis testing.
It compiles all currently available results in the area of exact and optimum
tests for variance component models and offers the only comprehensive treatment
for these models at an advanced level.

- Publisher

Excerpt

The book is intended to provide the state of the art
with regard to its subject area. Researchers in analysis of variance, experimental
design, variance components analysis, linear models, and other related
areas can benefit from its comprehensive coverage of the statistical literature.
The book can therefore be very useful to graduate students who plan to
do their research in the area of mixed models.